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Someone’s getting a) bollocked b) fired c) executed tonight, I’m sure. If Kotaku’s sources are right, basically everything about this year’s Call of Duty has just been blown wide open and revealed to John Q. Public some six months before likely release. It’s Modern Warfare 3 and it’s…

Nah, I’ll stop there. Well, spoiling spoilers would probably be pretty wretched behaviour on my part, so I shall leave any decision as to whether you go to the below link to discover the game’s entire plot months before it’s released to you. I read it, because my own experience and tastes suggests that caring about a Modern Warfare game’s plot is pretty much up there with caring about what colour toilet paper the Queen uses, but I guess it’s pretty rotten that those who are into it are going to find it bloody hard to avoid hearing it about for the next half-year. I’m not going to add to that risk, fear not.

What I will say is that, if all of this is as true as it appears to be, it’s a direct sequel to MW2 from a narrative perspective and deals with the various plot threads left hanging. Good-o.

Kotaku are splitting their frightening amounts of information into various posts, some of which are spoiler-free – here’s the broad overview, which is relatively safe to read, here’s details of the multiplayer, and here’s all the God-damned spoilers.

There’s various screenshots, artwork and even audio scattered throughout. Activision are going to be aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaangry: essentially, another company is controlling the flow of information about their game. Who was responsible for the leak? Someone internal, an outsourced media company, or someone with a vendetta after all that mucky business with Infinity Ward’s bosses a few years ago? Or just a lucky janitor? We may never know. Unless someone tells us. Then we’ll know. That’s how it works, see.

With several months to go until likely release (presuming they stick to their usual early Winter CoD schedule), I guess it’s possible Activision can change a whole bunch of stuff so not everyone knows exactly what to expect.

1. It is news.
2. It’s only a problem to people who don’t want to know the plot, but the spoilers are clearly marked so they needn’t find out (from Kotaku) if they don’t want to. No rape victims here.
3. Gawker should be strung up for that new design but the writers and editors of Kotaku were almost certainly not involved in that decision (though I suppose they may have been consulted).
4. Kotaku can now fuck off due to 3., but don’t lay into their contributors for it.
5. Perhaps some of the Kotaku contributors should tell Gawker to stick it up their arses (his arse) and abandon a once good but declining publication for greener pastures and less retarded commenters and a less retarded commenting system. Says mr. drunk commenter.

That is all the drunkenposting from from my tiny phone keyboard for tonight!

I don’t think it’s ethical of Kotaku to spoil literally everything they have on the game like this, whether or not it’s within their rights as journalists. Granted, I don’t give two shits about CoD’s story, and I don’t think ninety percent of the people who play CoD do either. And it’s true, the OMG SPOILARZ are pretty much, “Yep, that sure sounds like a Call Of Duty game, alright.” But let’s ignore that for the moment and consider the mere principle of the thing: a bunch of creative dudes spend approximately two years working on something they hope will blow everyone away and surprise people when it comes out, and then some jerk connected to the project goes and gives seemingly everything but the game itself to some other jerks who’ll do anything for hits, and suddenly all that effort’s been put into something that’s old news six months before it even comes out.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel sorry for Activision, and I certainly don’t think this’ll impact their bottom line at all. None of it is particularly shocking stuff, either. But I do feel bad for the creative people involved, because they should get the same chance as everyone else in their field to pleasantly surprise the people who’ll buy their game.

And I know this type of thing is common in internet entertainment journalism, with AICN and CHUD and JoBlo and Bleeding Cool and all the rest of them. But I think it’s tacky there too. If Harry Knowles wants to tell me everything that happens in The Dark Knight Rises a year before it comes out, I suppose that’s his prerogative, but I don’t know who it helps.

Dear entertainment journalists: why does anyone’s fictional story need to be spoiled? Talk about the entertainment business all you want, and even people’s personal lives, if you think it’s relevant to the business, but don’t just tell us exactly what happens in a piece of fiction that isn’t out yet. Whether or not anyone looks at it, it’s just a tacky thing to do, and shows a profound disrespect for the medium you claim to love, and those who work within it.

At the very least, you could display a little showmanship with your leakage; instead of vomiting up all the information you have, why can’t you just tease people with stuff like “You won’t BELIEVE who kicks the bucket in this episode!” That keeps people interested, at least.

I dunno, maybe I’m just old-fashioned about this stuff, but I like being surprised by my entertainment.